Comparative aerodynamic investigations on the thrust enhancement system of the gas turbine engine using CFD

Modern military aircraft systems require substantial increase in thrust capabilities for short durations to meet take-off, steep climbing, quick acceleration, sharp turns and emergent maneuverings requirements. These requirements are most easily met by addition of an afterburner to the basic gas turbine engines. The flow inside the afterburner exceeding the complex and the simulation of such flow is highly challenging. The understanding of such complex phenomena involves a detailed testing involving measurement throughout the afterburner. But it is expensive and time consuming. In this research the attempt has been made to carryout analysis in the afterburner using a CFD computational tool, i.e., ANSYS Fluent. The computations have been executed with the help of SIMPLE scheme based pressure and velocity coupling approach through structured grid arrangement. Due to the presence of high energized fluid particles, the formation of turbulence is quite high thus the standard k-epsilon model has been used for turbulence modeling. Cold flow analysis has been carried out for three different afterburner configurations by varying the locations of the V-Gutter and the result indicates that, for the best configuration the reduction in the total pressure loss and Mach number.